Save The Internet... In Particular, From ComCast

[filkertom]

I dumped ComCast Cable years ago. The only reason I'd held them so long was the high-speed internet, which blew the hell out of DSL. When I got a good DSL deal, decent prices and comparable speed, from SBC (now AT&T, but that's a different ugly story), I dropped ComCrap like a scalding grenade.

No reason to go back, either: vdovault in wga_supporters informs us that an FCC hearing in Boston turned away people at the door... because ComCast paid other people to fill up the seats.

Save The Internet.

(I do kinda wish the video didn't refer to the FCC-interested folks as "real citizens". It implies the others weren't. They were just being used, is all.)

Comments

[redaxe.livejournal.com]

It would be laughable -- they were falling asleep! -- if it weren't so tragic.

Fortunately, the people who matter noticed, and may well reschedule a new session (this one in Stanford, CA, IIRC).

Here are two posts to direct people to; the first is a first-person account of the actual meeting; the second is about why what Comcast did was unacceptable (not that we really need to be told, but this lays it out clearly and rationally).

I think Comcast hurt their case a LOT by doing this, and hope to see some real movement on well-defined, enforceable rules on net neutrality. (But not betting on it until it's in black, white, and stainless steel.)

[stevemb.livejournal.com]

It would be more accurate to distinguish the actually interested people as participating citizens. That said, I don't really have a problem with a bit of denigration toward people who contributed nothing other than 310K blackbody radiation and greenhouse gases and were there for the sole purpose of displacing legitimate attendees.

[infinitemorning.livejournal.com]

Well, I do want to be fair here and note that things are really shitty for everyone right now and a day's pay is a day's pay. And, in fact, the policies of the temp agency I was working with last year (fortunately I'm about to start a much nicer contract position, so I don't have to deal with them for a while, at least) were such that, if I was signed up to work that day, and they sent me on an assignment, I had to do it pretty much regardless of what it was. So some of these people may not have had easy choices.

But the connection between our shitty economy (and those who caused it) and the subversion of democracy would be a much wider issue.

[kengr]

If they hired the folks via a temp agency or the like, yeah, then it's not really the fault of the hirelings.

But Comcast is way out of line and hoipefully there's a law under which they can be hit with heavy fines for doing this.

[infinitemorning.livejournal.com]

I wrote a letter to the Boston Globe and encouraged others to do the same. One thing I'd really like to see is Massachusetts Attorney General Martha Coakley stepping in on this -- the New York Attorney General has already sent subpoenas to Comcast on the deep scans and throttling down alone when a much smaller portion of their population uses Comcast's service; Comcast is one of the main ISPs here in Mass., and I think they need to be investigated for the seat-filling as well. The AG's office has stepped in to slap Comcast down before (specifically for deceptive advertising on their Triple Play package offer, where they raised consumers' rates without warning after the trial period, even though some of those consumers had been assured that their rates would not go up) so I'm not sure why there's no sign of such intervention now.

Well, I have my paranoid, slightly anti-corporate suspicions, of course. But I like Martha and I hope it's just that the investigation has been kept quiet or no one's brought it to her attention yet. There are some areas in Massachusetts where Comcast still has an effective monopoly, mostly on the neighborhood level, I'm given to understand, so in light of that, their attempt to control the information that travels to, from and between their customers is especially disturbing.

[joshuwain.livejournal.com]

But ... but they're "Comcastic!" <shudders>

[strredwolf.livejournal.com]

I hear they're scheduling one at Stanford, which is great for one reason: Lawence Lessig is a professor there, and will take no antics from Comcast.

[maiac.livejournal.com]

Given that the FCC has been corrupted by Busheviks just like every other government agency, the best we can hope for is to drag out the proceedings until after January 20, 2009.

[acelightning.livejournal.com]